Anchorage Chapter Hosts ITExpo 2004

For the second year in a row, the Anchorage Alaska Chapter (150) was one of the hosts of ITExpo 2004 held October 19-20 at the William A. Egan Civic and Convention Center in downtown Anchorage. An estimated 5,000 attendees were present.

In cooperation with Sourdough Productions, AITP once again provided leadership to develop and present more than 130 educational seminars that were held in conjunction with the only remaining technology trade event geared toward the IT professional in Alaska.

"It's a natural fit for AITP to be involved with the event," said co-chair Dick Jablonowski of Network Business Systems, a long-time member of the Anchorage chapter and board member-at-large. "As IT professionals, who better to assist Sourdough Productions in bringing together a slate of seminars that the members of our community want to participate in? Nowhere else in Alaska can an IT professional interact with the leaders in technology in one place, at one time."

"Participating in this event helps our chapter support ongoing educational events, student chapters and contribute to the Stephen D. Gregg Memorial Scholarship that supports IT-related students at the University of Alaska Anchorage," reported Cindy Baldwin, one of three chairs, and also senior manager with GCI, a sponsoring vendor.

Other events that occurred in conjunction with ITExpo were HOT (Hands on Technology) labs put on by the Network Users Group of Anchorage, in addition to Anchorage Chapter's monthly meeting sponsored by Network Appliance.

One exciting event held was SuperTech 2004, where students from 20 local high schools, middle schools, vocational schools and colleges compete to build PCs from a bag of parts. Teams were timed to completion, and were also judged on neatness and thoroughness. Results were as follows:

These top teams faced off with a second challenge: to debug an otherwise working PC that had problems introduced to it. The final results:

1st place winners AVTech, Avtrekies at 2:44 and zero penalties

2nd place Winners Mat-Su Cisco Networking Team 1 at 5:12 and zero penalties

3rd place King Career Center, Blue Collar Bandits at 6:10 and zero penalties

4th place Charter College at 18:44 and zero penalties

Multiple teams from Goldenview Middle School also competed, and one of their teams completed. This is truly remarkable, as these students were 12-14 years of age, competing side by side with high school, college and vocational students!

ITExpo 2004 keynote speaker Ron Duncan, president and CEO of GCI, a leading telecommunications company based in Alaska, presented "What Is a Knowledge-Based Economy." In addition, Julie Kitka, president of the Alaska Federation of Natives, spoke during the rural communications forum on the current state of the economy in rural Alaska about moving from a physical labor force to an intellectual labor force.